 Hi, everybody. My name is Don Wetrich, and I am the innovation teacher at Noblesville High School. I'm going to have a lot of busyness and craziness go on behind me because the innovation class is now in session. And I actually wanted to do that by design because a lot of what we do here is student-led, and there's always a buzz of activity going on. And now is not the time to stop talking. Like, literally, you guys were doing disfine, and everybody's like, let's stop. You can keep going. All right. So essentially, to tell the story of what the innovation class is, I have to start from the very beginning. Several years ago, about five years ago, in fact, I got an email that just said, watch this. And I clicked on the link. And it was the TED Talk from Daniel Pink. And in this TED Talk, if you guys haven't seen it, pause it and then go back and watch it. It's amazing. And essentially, they talk about the 20% time that it started by Atlassian. And eventually, Google kind of got a lot of credit for it. And the paradox was, is that a lot of times, money and financial incentives get out in the way of deeper meaning and deeper learning. And what they found was, if they gave their employees an incentive of freedom and a chance to master something, that meant a lot more than giving them more money. Matter of fact, more money actually got in the way of great ideas. And so I remember watching it. And actually, a lot of educators were inspired as well. But after watching this, I thought to myself, wow, this is a great idea. This is something that could be useful in education. So I immediately, that next period, made my students watch it and said, all right, what do you guys think? Do you like it? Do you hate it? What's going on? And of course, they're like, oh, I wish we could have a class where we could do the things that we're passionate about and wish we could do the things that we've always had an interest in. And so I was like, all right, what do you guys think? But we should try this. And this is when I had a freshman English class. And the irony was, is that I gave them the chance to do it and it was horrible. It was actually among the worst ideas that we've ever had because all these things that I wanna do this and I wanna do that, when I actually put it in their lap, they didn't know what they wanted to do. And so I finally gave them this opportunity like, all right, let's do it. And the first thing out of their mouth was, what do I, what should I do? I'm like, no, no, no, you told me the things that, you know, what do you want to do? What are you passionate about? And at first they thought it was cool. Then they thought, I don't know what I'm passionate about. And it then occurred to me that we reap what we sow. Too many times in our education system, we're like, hey, learn this exact thing. And we don't ask for them to venture out. And so essentially these freshmen were awaiting instructions, because that's all they ever knew. But there was just enough nuggets of wisdom and just a few amount of projects that were really good that I wanted to press forward on it. So I asked my principal, hey, could I have my own class? Could I have this innovation class where instead of 20% time, it was 100% of what we did? And he said, no. But I heard yes. So I started forming partnerships and I actually contacted Daniel Pink and I got some really great contacts and started working with a couple people at Stanford. Really great people like Howard Reingold and Tina Selig and then a couple other people from other universities. And so when I started forming these partnerships, the school was a little bit more accepting of me wanting to try it. And even in the first couple years, it was a lesson in what not to do. Because the more and more I saw it like, hey, I'm giving you the freedom to do what you've always wanted, I still met a lot of resistance of, I don't know what I want to do. And so that's kind of when I started to realize that it was more about a culture build than it was a class of what you wanted to be. It's kind of like on January 1st when people say, I wanna lose weight this year. We all say we want to lose weight. We all say, oh, this is year, I'm gonna quit smoking or drinking or whatever. Cause it's fun to brainstorm. And then a lot of this class was built on great brainstorming ideas. It was the follow through that was really tough. And I realized that a lot of times kids didn't want to take any risks. The projects they were choosing were simple and accomplishable and by definition boring. And they were trying to do the things that I was interested in or that what I might be pleased by. Cause they're like, you know, I'd ask them like, hey, what are you thinking about working on? And they'd say, what do you want me to work on? What do I need to do to get an A in your class? And that kind of disturbed me because I was like, no, what are you passionate about? And it honestly took a couple of years of showcasing what we did where people like thought, wait, it doesn't have to always be about tech. You know, we've had social entrepreneur things. We've had service learning things. We've had all sorts of non-tech things where people started to say, wait, wait, wait a second. So you're telling me that I could like, one of our kids wanted to do glass blowing. They're like, I could literally research what we wanted to do and work on it. And that's kind of how things started to take shape. So now the way the class runs, and by the way, it changes almost every year. And I'll tell you a story about my dad here in a second. But at the end of every nine weeks, I ask for them to reflect. What are we doing wrong? What are we doing right? How can we empower you to fall in love with learning and then carry things through? So the way things sit now is, number one, it starts off with a driving question. What do the students want to work on? Number two, the learning doesn't just occur in here. I think collaboration is more than the kids sitting next to. So our students are working and collaborating with outside mentors, outside experts, which there's a myriad of reasons why I love that. Number one, it's getting them to be working with some of the best people in the United States. And now we've got some kids collaborating with people all over the world. And number two, they're gleaning these insights from these people on learning the best things they could possibly learn. And the third thing is we're changing minds of, instead of a cute little, I want to write a poster board and an essay, our students are changing the experts' minds of our students are really, really good. And they have a potential to be even better. So as we've gone along with that, I now have everything chunked. And this is another thing I've learned for my students. When you say I'm going to work on a Genius Hour project this year, you might as well set fire to it seven months out of the year. I mean, you guys went to college. When you had a long-term project, when did you start it? The night before it was due. So now I have everything set up to where they have everything chunked in two weeks. So to give you a metaphor, if I asked students, like, I want to learn how to play the piano, do you know how to, can you learn how to play the piano in two weeks? Yes, yes you can. Not very well, but you could always start it. And by the way, if after your two weeks you don't like playing piano, you've always sacrificed two weeks. You know, I've got a problem with students that go off to college and they take freshman and sophomore year of prerequisites and then they find out by their junior year that they don't like their major and they have to change it. Well, now we can have an opportunity that every two weeks, they either can build on top of it or they can pull the cord. And learning how to fail is really, really, really important and relevant in this class. So after the two weeks are over, we have them blog and after we blog, they reflect and adjust. Matter of fact, I'm gonna talk to you guys about the Roth IRA and how that looks like innovation in our classroom. All right, so this is what I really get excited about because this is what a lot of times our kids come up with and this is actually, I did a reflection at the end of the year, we realized that this is innovation and this is our class. Every great idea starts and ends with this. We call it the Roth IRA. The R, if I can get a marker that works well, the R stands for realization. Every great idea in this class, a lot of times a kid is in the shower, he's running, he's lifting, whatever, and all of a sudden he's like, oh my gosh, I got a great idea. That's the R. And then as soon as you have that idea, hopefully they'll jot it down. But the next day in class, we take it to the O and that stands for open discussion. And this open discussion is when all of a sudden you get that idea out of your head and into everybody else's psyche. And then there's all sorts of things that hop and pop around, but the one of the most important things is you go to T, which is tussle. You have to know how to love and trust one another in this class because you're going to fight. A kid that says he's got the greatest idea, another student's going to say it's okay and you need to consider this. And then all of a sudden there's great arguments that break out and really when you start defending their ideas, you all of a sudden, number one, you're substantiating it, but two, you're listening to reason. And just because you thought it was a great idea, it doesn't mean it is. So as these ideas and fights are going out, you go to the H and the H is homogeneous grouping. And this is great in the sense that this isn't necessarily grouped as far as talents, this is grouped as far as passions. So a lot of times a marriage made in heaven is a great tech kid gets married to a great style kid or an art kid or design. But if you're passionate about certain subject, you guys can start teaming up. So that goes to the big group. Now we go to the small group. So by the way, I never have more than teams of three. Teams of four, there's always going to be dead weight. So now you go to the IRA. This is the fun part. The I is ideation and then slash prototyping. This is the hard part of hard parts. The things that you said you were going to do, you do it. And this is kind of tough because again, a lot of students will immediately gonna go and they're gonna say, like, I'm gonna code an app. Have you ever done that before? We'll know. Then you might want to get on code, you know, HS or code.org and work on level one or some kids like, I'm gonna come up with a disease curer and I'm like, okay, have you taken a microbiology class? No. So a lot of times on the ideation, start as small as you can. And this is great for any class. When you're wanting to do a project, make sure that foundational point is there. But on the prototyping, this is the hard part of hard parts. So if you said you wanted to make a shirt, your prototype number one is you cutting the cloth and prototyping it rapidly first. And that's prototype number one. After your two weeks, I want you to reflect. Reflection is the key to all of this. When you think about your own thoughts, metacognition is where learning's at. Because if you just do things, like when you ask a student to memorize some work and you take a test, that's not reflecting. They just short term memorized it and they don't care as soon as that test is over. When you ask students to do something that's meaningful and they reflect on it, they're gonna go, you know what, come to think of it, I should have done this, this, and this. And so that reflection leads to an adjustment. And then why I love that is that new adjustment leads to a new realization. And that new realization, you should have class time to have a new open discussion. And you should fight over it more about how prototype number one wasn't successful and why it wasn't successful. And that will lead to prototype number two. And then prototype number two, you'll have two weeks to work on it and reflect on it. And then you'll again adjust and you'll have a new realization and on and on because I'm wanting for students to work on self-improvement. One of the glorious things about this is that the students after a while don't care about the grade. They are trying things that deliberately are out of their comfort zone and they wanna work on things that are making a difference. Not necessarily memorizing a formula and learning it once and done. So that is essentially our innovation class in a nutshell. I'm going to have some of the students speak for themselves on some of the projects that they're doing and what it means to them. But here's my whole thought and here's my whole point on this. Schools need this in the worst way. I can't tell you about how many times I hear students talk about relevancy and they want to be relevant. Millennials are big on relevancy. And a lot of times there's this negativity on kids today, kids today. Well, kids today demand to know what's going on. The subservient culture is a dangerous thing. I've done a lot of traveling and I've even seen other subservient cultures where the only thing they're worried about is making sure the kids behave and sit still. But ask yourself this. How much groundbreaking things are coming from kids that know how to take a good test? I'm really, really, really proud of my students because we don't think outside the box. There is no box. They invent their box. And then they prototype it and then they test it. That's where I'm wanting things to go desperately. Don't get me wrong. I think that there's foundational classes. I think that you need to take those math and science courses. You need to know your history. But a little bit of part of your day, and I'm hoping in high school it's an entire elective, I'm wanting these things to happen. And my last point is that a lot of times people say, well, this is great for high school. What about elementary? You guys have all the power. It takes a lot of times my students two or three months to get over this culture because they are shocked that I'm literally going to let them work on the things that they want to work on. But you guys, I had a kindergarten teacher ask me, should I call it 20% time? Should I call it genius hour? You should call it kindergarten. Kindergarten is the ultimate breeding ground for the stuff because their show and tell is amazing. Kids feel proud of what they already know and they want to showcase it. You should encourage them to learn a little bit more. Have them follow some passions and give just a little bit of time either once a week or maybe a little time every day to work on the things that they're truly a passion about. I hope that my passion for this hopefully is coming through. If you guys have ever any questions, you can always email me at dwetrick at gmail.com. You can always follow me on Twitter where I'm active and I'm active on showcasing what my students do. I think the other thing is this transparency from this class is key. When my students do really great things, I don't want moms and dads to put it on their refrigerator on a magnet. I want the world to see it. Therefore, we blog, we vlog, we do videos, we consult, we do anything we can to possibly move things forward. But enough from me. I'm gonna have you meet a couple of my students. Thank you guys so much and now on to the real genius part of this, hearing from them. Five, four, Friday at 3.30. Hi there, my name is Hunter Stone and I'm an app developer and software consultant. This class is amazingly important to me because it's allowed me to expand on the things that interest me and have time to pursue the things that are going to benefit me later in life. I was always interested in app development and technology but I would never be where I am today had I not been able to take this class and experience all the different contacts with people that I've had. Last year when I was focusing mainly on app development, I contacted some people who helped me better myself in the way I make apps and streamline the process and make it more professional. So that was definitely an enlightening experience. The culture of the room is great. I mean, I've been able to expand my interests and talk to so many different people that have shared so many different journeys and advice and things that I now use every day. I mean, it's been fantastic as far as learning about different things that interest me go. The hardest part of this class to me is focusing on one thing that I wanna accomplish. I have so many different things going on right now and all of them are going to make me very successful and finding the one right now that means the most is probably the hardest part. One of the greatest things about this class is that we get to promote the things that we're doing. So if any of you have any kind of app idea or are looking to expand your business into technology, go ahead and contact me or my partner, Zach Baker at thebakeratbakerstonegroup.com. Send us a message and we'll be glad to help you. My name is Jake Jordan and I'm presently working on my blog about sharing Christ's love to the world. It really, this class isn't about technology. It's about changing culture and changing the way you think. It really is about, like before I entered this class there was no way I would have thought of be blogging or even doing anything like I am today but once you get into this class you start thinking, hey, I can actually do things, I can make a difference in this world and you start getting the tools and the resources necessary to do that. So the idea that it's just tech-based really isn't true, I mean yes you can code apps or do things tech-wise but you could also just start like even just a social media program or like we started a club at our school called Hall and Ministries. We also started an American Sign Language Club at our school. So it's really just about finding the opportunities for you to follow your passions and making a difference even just maybe at the local level. I think that the environment in this class is showing us how we can communicate together and work together to work toward the common good because while one kid might be working on a certain project like a blog he can be in a room helping out another kid who's working on the hallway ministry and any other project and I think that's really cool how we can come together and meet in the middle and work together to make a better future. I actually find a lot of my inspiration just by sitting in here and listening to little tidbits of what people are talking about whether it be the blogs or whether it be hallway ministries or whether it be Baker and Stone group. Just the little things that they end up talking about will give me ideas for what I'm going to write next and say oh, look at this kid, look what he's doing. Can we get more students in the school to start working like that? Hey, my name is Matthew Lindgren and I'm in the class as well and I'm doing a heavy amount of video production. That is my thing and that's how I spend my time in the class. In fact, I'm the one who's actually put together this entire package that you're watching. It's sort of my specialty. So if you'd like to check out what I'm doing you can go over to the wonderful YouTube and you can just search Matthew Lindgren. I'll put a link in the description to this video if you're watching on YouTube now. You can find my channel with no problem. Basically, the way that this class has improved my video because I've been shooting for years is I have time to work on video on a regular day during school and I have time to connect with people who know what they're doing much more than me and work to become like them. I can't do that in a regular class. Okay, so if you're looking to do a class like this please for the love of all things good and holy, go and do it because the students, they will absolutely flourish. I've been amazed because this is my second year in the class. I'm amazed at how fast people this year are adapting and becoming capable and proficient at working on what they love. Please just do it.